Tissue bank puts a stop to brain drain

FOR the first time in Australia, researchers will no longer have to rely on brain tissue flown from Britain to try to find a better treatment and hopefully a cure for multiple sclerosis.

The MS Brain Bank, opened at the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Institute yesterday, is critical in giving scientists the opportunity to use modern research technology, which requires high quality brain tissue that has been rapidly removed and stored below 80 degrees.

The director of the MS Brain Bank, Simon Hawke, said it was vital that Australia had its own brain bank specifically for MS. There are about 10 such banks around the country for diseases such as Alzheimer's. The NSW Government agreed to jointly fund the $1 million project with MS Research Australia.

Multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease that turns the body's immune system against itself, affects 18,000 Australians, making it the leading cause of chronic neurological disability in young adults.

Professor Hawke said very few brains had been recovered from multiple sclerosis patients in Australia, and he urged sufferers to start donating.

Ideally, the brain needed to be retrieved within 12 hours, and definitely within 24 hours, and was then sliced in sections and frozen, Professor Hawke said.

He hoped that families of MS sufferers would also donate their brains to be used as control tissue. "This will really give local research a real boost … there's some very powerful technology you can use if you've got tissue stored in an optimal way."